


When I Think About Space

by berlynn_wohl



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, M/M, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for a couple of prompts I got as part of my Mystery Slash Theater 3000 fic-fest. (Prompts are at the end of the fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Think About Space

1.

 

Hermann followed Newt as he strode past the second row of cars. He had now bypassed every car in the lot categorized as “economy.” 

“Why are you looking here?” Hermann asked. Newt had slowed down and was examining the luxury American cars with more care. “We passed plenty of perfectly suitable vehicles.” 

Newt stopped in front of a Lincoln Town car, unnecessarily large for the task of ferrying two scientists back and forth from their hotel in Socorro to the nearby Very Large Array, and monstrous next to its Japanese and European counterparts. 

“We're getting this one,” Newt said, and refused to explain why. 

 

2.

 

To Hermann's dismay, whoever it was at the Array Operations Center that had scheduled his visit had figured in an hour just for meeting-and-greeting. His liaison, a Doctor Elizabeth Vincent, seemed determined to introduce Hermann to everyone on site before allowing him to look at their data. 

“This is Doctor Hermann Gottlieb," Vincent said for the fifteenth time, in this particular instance to an analyst, David Warren. “He's here to consult on the electromagnetic signature of the Breach, to aid our department in our surveying for trans-dimensional anomalies.” 

“Doctor Gottlieb, of course!” Warren held out his hand, and Hermann shook it with his usual reluctance. “Everyone here knows all about your work. But I heard you still work closely with your partner, Doctor Geiszler. Is he joining us as well?” 

“Er, no,” Hermann stammered. “He's out geocaching today.” 

When he saw the puzzled look on Warren's face, he went on: “We did indeed work together for many years prior to the closure of the Breach...but these days the term 'partner,' is more of, ah...” 

Once he got the idea, Warren laughed and said, “I understand now, I understand. Well, I'm looking forward to your input on the project. Good to meet you!” 

Doctor Vincent continued to lead Hermann through the atrium, bringing him, he hoped, closer to the actual lab where he would be doing some actual consulting.

 

 

3.

 

At 5 PM Newt was there waiting for him outside the AOC, just when Hermann had asked him to be there, shockingly. 

“Did you find very many today?” Hermann asked, preempting any line of questioning about his own day, which had been, disappointingly, more social than analytical. 

“Six,” Newt said as he cruised down the road. “I stopped a lot to look at the scenery. And I saw like six roadrunners today, and a bobcat.” 

“Lovely.” 

Newt picked up on Hermann’s tone. “Oh, they made you talk to people, didn't they? I'm sorry.” 

“It's fine. Er, you realize that our hotel is in the other direction, don't you?”

“Yes, I'm not stupid. But I'm taking you somewhere you'll like. There's no people there. Well, except me. And I brought stuff to eat.” 

They drove for nearly an hour along a deserted highway, while the afternoon turned to evening. Then suddenly, Newt turned off the road entirely and drove into the desert. The car lurched and bumped through the rocks and dust along for a further half-mile. 

Hermann clutched the dashboard and shouted, “What the hell are you doing?” 

“Relax,” Newt said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “I scouted this place earlier. Perfectly fine.” 

The sun was setting; to be faced with it in the desert was no longer a hardship, but a joy. Newt got out of the car, and when Hermann did not do likewise, Newt ordered him to. From the back seat, Newt pulled a heavy blanket and a canvas bag. He unfurled the blanket and placed it over the enormous hood of the car, making sure to cover the windshield all the way to the roof. Then he hopped on to it, holding the bag, and showed Hermann that inside was a thermal container that had kept two sandwiches and two drinks cold for them. 

The car was low enough to the ground that Hermann could lean against it, pull himself onto the hood, and then rotate himself in order to get situated on it. Newt was reclining against the windshield, and patted the space next to him to encourage Hermann to do the same. 

“This is why you chose such an unnecessarily oversized car? So we could sit on it? Is this a scene from a film, that you are trying to reenact? Because the reference is lost on me.” 

“I’m gonna let your whining slide, because I know you had a bad day. Just be patient, okay?” 

They ate their sandwiches and watched the sun as it set. Hermann might have preferred to do so in silence, but he also did not have the heart to ask Newt to shut up. Between bites, and sometimes during them, Newt was explaining an elaborate geocache that he had found that day: 

“See, you get to the spot and all you see is this metal rod sticking out of the ground. And the thing is, you’re not allowed to just bury a geocache; it’s against the rules. So it turns out, what you have to do is, you hook your jumper cables up to your car, and then you hook them to the metal rod, and it powers this mechanism underneath. There’s actually a bucket that comes up, like _vrrrrrr_ ,” here he made a rotating-and-lifting gesture with both hands to illustrate, “and it has the log book inside. It was really cool.” 

Hermann continued eating his sandwich in silence; he did not bother faking interest in Newt’s hobby. 

“Did you get to have any fun at all today?” Newt asked. “Did they let you sit in one of the big dishes while they turned it? How cool would that be!” 

“Tomorrow, perhaps.” 

“I didn't think I'd be saying this while we were on this trip, but it's gotten quite cold,” Hermann remarked as the sun set behind the mountains. 

“Oh, here, no problem, check it out.” Newt turned onto his side, reached across Hermann, and pulled the edge of the blanket up and over the two of them. Then he rolled back and did the same with his side. “Just make a little science burrito, here.” Now they were cuddled up close, and wrapped up tight. 

Newt encouraged Hermann to watch the sky, and Hermann soon realized why: the stars were coming out. And on this arid plain, almost entirely free of human inhabitants, it seemed that _all_ the stars had come out. Hermann was sadly accustomed to seeing a few twinkles here and there in the night sky, most of which were actually satellites and space junk. But tonight, a spray of millions of stars filled his vision. “Newton,” he said, “I’m so sorry I was difficult about this. You don’t know what this means to me.” 

Newt was happy that he’d done the right thing, but as he processed Hermann’s words, his smile faded to bemusement. “You know, you’re right. I kind of _don’t_ know. I’ve never really understood why you like space so much. It’s pretty and everything, but you are, like, _way_ into it.” 

Hermann continued to gaze up at the sky, finally answering, “It’s like how you feel about life on Earth, I suppose.” 

“But I want to know why! Like, tell me why, now that we’re out here, tell me what it is about space that you love.” 

This was, perhaps surprisingly, a conversation that Hermann had never had before. He had only ever been either in the presence of other enthusiasts (who did not require an explanation) or people who were completely disinterested (who did not desire one). No one had asked him this simple question, and so he had no answer prepared. But now that newt had asked, he desperately wanted to talk about it, so he spoke whatever thoughts came to mind. 

“When I think about space, and how little I actually know about it, I feel longing. It’s so mysterious, and I just want to know everything about it. I want to know every inch of it.” 

Newt seemed amused by this. “So it’s like, you have a crush on space?” 

Hermann ignored that and went on: “Almost everything we know about space, we know _not_ because we’ve actually observed it, but because it has to be that way in order to explain what we _can_ observe. Like the orbits of various bodies, gravitational influences and so on.” 

“Oh, I heard that once – the dance in the dark room, right? Where the men are in black and the ladies are in white, and you can only see the ladies, but the way they dance around gives you a clue about where the men are and how they move.” 

“Yes. But I was trying to explain it in a way that answers your original question. It’s rather like when you see an attractive person walking down the street fully clothed, and you try to imagine what they look like naked, based on the way their clothes fit.” 

“You do that? Gawk at hot strangers?” 

“Well, not anymore, of course, darling. Now I only have eyes for you. But I’m not made of stone, and before we met, I would occasionally find myself wondering what a passing stranger looked like under their clothes. And at some point, I realized that what I felt in those moments, the curiosity tinged with the hopelessness of that desire ever being fulfilled, was a little bit like what I felt when I wondered about some aspect of the universe. 

“You see, there is only a tiny fraction of space that can possibly be observed. The universe beyond the cosmic horizon, from which nothing can ever be seen, is thousands or perhaps millions of times larger than the observable universe, which even then, we can only see as it was a very, very long time ago.” Hermann’s tone began to change, to become more melancholy. He tilted his head, just slightly, just so that his temple was touching Newt’s temple, and went on, “And that makes me feel very small, and lonely, and terrified. And terror can be…exciting. It makes my pulse race, makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, takes my breath. The despair intensifies the desire.” 

Hermann wriggled a little, in their shared, confined space, and Newt recognized the movement. Hermann was getting excited. Newt was about ready to burst with this knowledge. Hermann was the type who enjoyed a good bedroom romp, but needed a lot of coaxing. If Newt had only known, all you needed to do to get him ready was ask him to talk about stars and shit. 

Newt fished his way through the blanket, feeling his way down the buttons of Hermann’s shirt, until he found a solid ridge of flesh. “Oh my God, dude,” he said, “you really do have a boner for space.” He ran his hand smoothly up and down it, over the fabric of Hermann’s trousers. Hermann’s breaths had just a hint of vocalization in them. 

“But there’s something else,” Hermann whispered. “That intense, profound loneliness gained a new dimension after I met you: a desire for an intense, profound _connection_. I still ache to know that I am mortal and ephemeral and nothing in the scheme of the universe, but while I am here, while I do exist, I want to exist somewhere close to you.” 

Newt was quite taken aback by this. “Dude, that is the most romantic thing you’ve ever said. Just for that, I am going to keep touching your junk for a while, specifically, until you moan really loud one last time and then shout at me to stop because you’re done now.” 

“I believe that is the prescribed length of time to touch someone’s…junk,” Hermann said, just before uttering a series of little alarmed whimpers of pleasure as Newt unzipped his trousers and took out his prick. Newt lived for the noises Hermann made; it was so precious, the way he tried (and utterly failed) to be dignified about the things Newt did to him. Newt wanted to tease Hermann, keep him talking and just torment him, so he squeezed tightly but slid Hermann’s foreskin up and down with excruciating slowness. 

Unable to free a hand to bring Newt’s face closer to his own, and too shy to ask for what he wanted, Hermann had to strain his neck to lean far enough to get a kiss. But once he had, Newt lunged forward, reciprocating enthusiastically, until their mouths made wet sounds to complement the tiny squelches of Hermann’s foreskin sliding over the head of his cock. Having no self-control himself, Newt was jerking Hermann hard and fast now, and Hermann grunted into their open-mouthed kiss, straining against the confines of the blanket. 

Newt broke the kiss to whisper against Hermann’s mouth, “You shouldn’t be kissing me. Look up at the sky. You should be looking at the sky while I do this.” 

Hermann looked away and upwards, reaching out to brace himself against Newt’s arm. The blankets had come loose, but it was alright; by now they were both quite warm. Hermann squirmed as he thrust into Newt’s hand, but to Newt’s dismay, despite the magnificent surroundings and the sublime experience, Hermann was still a worrier, and his hips stuttered to a halt as he said, "Oh, but it’ll make such a mess.” 

Ugh, why couldn’t Hermann stop fussing about things for two minutes? “Here, can you turn towards me a little?” Newt pressed himself against Hermann, until he could feel that the tip of Hermann’s erection was brushing against the fabric of his own shirt. He resumed his stroking, saying, “Now the mess will just get on me. Go ahead. It’s okay.” 

Hermann bit his lip as his body began to convulse, and he opened his mouth, unable to contain the noises he was making. Newt was still holding Hermann’s prick so tightly, he could feel each pulse, and then the warm wetness soaking his shirt as Hermann panted helplessly. 

Soon the jerks and twitches and groans gave way to a quiet, catatonic state, and Hermann seemed capable of only the occasional soft sigh. It was only when Newt shifted a little, because his leg had fallen asleep, that Hermann said hoarsely, “I should return the favor, hm.” 

“Nah, man, don’t sweat it. What I want to do right now, I think we better not do it on the car. Or _in_ the car, or anywhere _near_ the car, or else we’ll be banned from Hertz for life. I’m willing to wait until we get back to the hotel.” 

“But then our shenanigans might get us banned from Comfort Inn for life.” 

This was met with a shrug. “That, I’m okay with,” Newt said. He looked back up at the sky, and just then saw the sparkling streak of a meteoroid. “Holy crap, I just realized, we’ve seen like five hundred shooting stars tonight, but we haven’t made any wishes! Make a wish, man, before we go.” 

Hermann seemed to be trying to think of something, but at last he just gave a little hum, and kept his eyes on Newt. “No, I won’t bother,” he said. “What more is there to wish for?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts: 
> 
> transhermann: "Hermann's complete adoration of space has taken full hold of him again after the closing of the Breach. Newt wants to learn more about space from his favorite person, so he asks Hermann for an astronomy lesson!"
> 
> drhermannhottlieb: "Hermann/Newt; Hermann is an outer space-groupie as much as Newt is a kaiju-groupie."


End file.
